Critical Thinking Blog #4

Just like me, who disagrees with the practice of human cloning, Churchill’s play called The Number shows the perils to human cloning that will clearly show the possible outcomes to ‘cloning gone wrong’. This play shows the conflicts that can come along with human cloning. In the play a father, Salter, clones his son Bernard for many different reasons. But instead of just having one clone of Bernard there ends up being about 20 clones of him. In the play Salter stated "But I didn't know that wasn’t part of the deal. They were meant to make one of you not a whole number, they stole that, we'll deal with, and it’s something for lawyers. But you're what I wanted, you're the one" (Churchill 158). Salter basically addresses his concerns about the multiplicity of clones. He did not originally want so many clones of his son but was pleased with the outcome. Bernard’s clone (B2) is outraged that he’s a clone.  Bernard #2 states "I'm just a copy. I'm not the real one" (Churchill 158). You can see here that B2 does not like the fact that he is just a copy of Salter’s first son. This is the kinds of downfall cloning creates. The author writes, “Because they’re copies, copies? they’re not, copies of you which some mad scientist has illegally, how do you know that? , I don’t but, what if someone else is the one, the first one, the real on (Churchill 148)”. This play shows the complexities of the cloning. Salter’s unjust reason for this act led to unwant tragic that left him with less than what he began with. Churchill’s play addresses the importance between nature and nurture. One question that The Number makes us question is whether or not cloning is a just representation of humanity? Another question is what’s greater in importance, Nature or Nurture?   The moral of the story gives an instance of a probable act that one may foresee and the most probable outcome one can expect.